Have you decided to lose some weight as quickly as possible but confused between yoga and gym? Often weight loss seekers get paused in perplexity in yoga vs gym workouts which is better. Basically any form of exercise provides both mental and health benefits but yoga seems to have an upper hand over the exercises that we do in a gym.
Yoga vs Gym Workouts
Gym workout includes cardio exercises and shaping the body by lifting different sorts of weights, while cardio exercises are good for your heart, lifting weights can help you lose body fat and gain muscles, but is that all what we need to lead a healthy and stress free life? Whether you are a working professional or a student, competition has grown up to a level where you want to stay ahead of others and you work hard day and night without realizing that how much stress is you have in your daily life and how it is affecting your body.
A recent study has shown that stress is a threat to your brain’s natural and inborn ability to keep itself healthy; too much stress narrows an essential part of your brain called ‘Hippocampus’ which is responsible for producing emotions and maintains the functioning of your long-term memory. Well, before you put any further stress on your brain, you would be glad to know that a simple solution to keep you daily mental and physical stress away lies in the ascetic art of Yoga. Yoga not only helps you to stay fit and lose unwanted weight but it also keeps your mind calm, focused and relaxed. If you think you cannot concentrate on your daily tasks and get distracted easily, yoga can help you stabilize your mind and that is what is required for leading a healthy, successful and stress-less life.
To help you with achieving your weight loss goal while also keeping your psychological health at calm, here we have shared some facts that actually prove that yoga is better and efficient than gymming.
Yoga for Beginners: The Best Yoga Practices
Yoga for Beginners: Step by Step Guide Before Start Practicing
Yoga for Beginners: What is Yoga Meditation
Demands lesser time
In your day-to-day routine, you may not get enough time to hit the gym and somehow even if you manage to get to the gym you may not have enough time to perform different set of exercises to emphasize on each body part individually. But do you know even 20 minutes of daily yoga practice can bring a huge difference in your life, and that 20 minutes of workout works for both your mental as well as physical health, for instance it hardly takes 3 minutes to perform ‘Surya Namaskar’ properly and that is actually more than enough for you to tone your muscles. Surya Namaskar benefits for weight loss are unmatched. Surya Namaskar composes of 12 set of asanas (Poses) and is a great workout which effects both upper and lower part of your body and also brings flexibility. So, you can practice ‘Surya Namaskar’ as many times as per your body stamina, availability of time and ability, though it is known that a few movie stars and models perform this asana for as many as 108 times continuously to achieve a nicely toned and attractive figure but if you are not an aspiring model even 10-12 times a day is sufficient. Surya Namaskar also works as cardiovascular therapy if done at a steady pace and uninterruptedly a couple of times at. Surya Namaskar is a workout for the whole body but yoga has numerous other asanas and we recommend you to blend Surya Namaskar with a couple of more asanas and explore the magic of yoga. Yoga is multi-dimensional and would you believe that yoga has as many as 84 lakhs asanas, so sky is the limit and your dedication is the potential.
Benefits both mind and the body
Yoga psychological benefits are incredible – Yoga not only helps tone your body but it also fine-tunes your psychological and mental well-being, as per a research people who practice yoga regularly are likely to be more optimistic as compare to a normal person. Yoga brings a positive approach in you thinking by relaxing your mind, improves concentration level and fills you with positive energy that ultimately helps you accomplishing your daily tasks effectively.
More efficient
If you think lifting weight is the most effective way to strengthen your arms, then try a handstand yoga practice (Adho Mukha Vrksasana) and you will find out that nothing can be as efficient in comparison to lifting you entire body on your arms, also performing a set of asanas can help you increase you stamina level enormously. Handstand yoga practice for beginners are highly useful and help increasing stamina, list of asanas are as follows:
- Ardha Matsyendrasana
- Dhanurasana or bow pose
- Bhujangasana or the cobra pose
- Paschimotanasana or the forward bend
- Halasana or plough pose
Low on pocket
People spend innumerable amount of money just to lose weightat home and end up quitting gym after a few sessions, but to practice yogatolose weightall it takes is a little bit of space and a mat. If you are new to yoga then you will easily find a DVD to get you started or if you have an internet connection then you will get everything you need to know about yoga along with the video tutorials on how to perform various asanas and most of these tutorials are really interesting and engaging.
Top 3 Postures/ Asanas in Yoga for Reducing Weight and Increasing Stamina
Top 8 – List of Best Yoga CDs/DVDs – Practice under Trained Instructors
Can be done anywhere
Many beginners ask this question – is this safe to practice yoga at home? Unlike gym, yoga can be practiced at home or any other place spacious enough to perform various postures whether it’s your terrace or balcony, a park or any other open space. But in order for you to do gym you would need specific set of equipment and demands comparatively more space.
Minimum chances of body injuries
Yoga is one such art where the chances of you hurting your body during a yoga session are minimal unlike the gym training where one wrong move can land you on a hospital bed or you may end up breaking you sessions for quite a long time due to a severe injury. One of the goals of yoga is to relax your mind so that you can focus better and you move you mind and body together leaving no space for any serious injuries or other disorder problems.
Helps recovering internal injuries and pains
Yoga is also used as a therapy to cure several diseases and internal injuries, the postures of yoga are designed in a way that are beneficial for your heart, improves blood circulation as well as the level of digestion in human body which ultimately helps internal injuries to heal faster.
Improves the level of concentration
Meditation is one of the 8 phases in yoga which deals with mental relaxation and concentration. Meditation is basically the state of self-consciousness where one focuses on the intake and outflow of breath and tries not to get distracted by isolating oneself from the outer world. Even doctors recommend practicing meditation to improve the level of concentration.
Yoga has no age restrictions
The beauty of this art is that it is for everyone, irrespective of age and gender, unlike gym where there are strict age limitations and a minimum age criteria.
Well, this article is just to make you aware of some of the facts about yoga. This article is not to discourage you from practicing in gym as that also has benefits of its own in some other manners but the goal of gym and yoga is pretty much the same which is to stay fit and healthy. Yoga is basically a science, an art or a technique to enlighten self-knowledge by performing various postures which are beneficial for internal as well external part of body. Since yoga is an art that cannot be described completely in words but it can certainly be experienced. The upper hand of yoga is that it not only saves you money but it also saves you a lot of time which is precious than money in today’s context.